I received an email from an exam board today which said:

Once again politics and Westminster teacher bashing takes precedent over the opinions and advice given by the teaching professionals who actually work with our children.  Apparently our exams are too easy and we have to do something to make sure they aren’t.  Of course these changes have far-reaching implications for our students, big ones for some.

My children are low attainers as you might expect (they attend a special school).   About half do entry level qualifications and the rest work at GCSE level.  There are children like mine in every mainstream school across the country – they aren’t that unusual.  These are children that have to be reminded what they did last week (sometimes they forget what they did earlier in the day).  These students will now have to remember what they learned up to two years ago.  Whilst it is possible to build in revision sessions (after all how can students with low literacy levels reasonably revise at home?), it isn’t possible to revise everything in sufficient depth for the students to do themselves justice.  I struggled getting enough revision in when we did modular exams.

So what is the answer?  Not only are the exams being made harder but at the same time pressure is put on schools to achieve better and better results.  The only conceivable way my students can achieve a GCSE-equivalent qualification that reflects their ability is to do a vocational qualification like BTEC where the assessment is portfolio based (although even this is being changed – more about BTEC changes here).

Of course none of these changes are pupil centred or put the student first.  Mr Gove hasn’t considered how my students will feel if I enter them for a qualification they are doomed to fail.   After the media and political attention drawn to the disaffected youth following the recent riots I thought the Government might have started to change its approach.

For now I’ll be plodding along following BTEC science with my students and trying to convince them as we go that they aren’t failures and that they have a place in society.  Let’s hope I am right!

Having sat down and looked at many specifications we had selected a course to run with our students next year, and I pity other schools like mine (with a high percentage of SEN students) who are having to make a similar decision.

Readers of my blog may have picked up on my dislike of the BTEC qualification, although my gripe has mainly been with the way the qualification is run and the prices charged by Edexcel.  I had decided to drop BTEC because it doesn’t really suit students who are poor attenders or those with poor literacy skills.

We were to move away from BTEC and instead offer OCR entry level with OCR Gateway GCSE science alongside to challenge our more able students.  I was pleased with the match between the two courses and I was even starting to look forward to September.  However a game changing decision was announced by Mr Gove in June (on Sunday morning breakfast television, hardly the arena for important political decisions but then Mr Gove isn’t known for his consideration of teachers).  Modular GCSEs were being phased out with all examinations being placed at the end of the course.

This is a game changer for a special school with 100% statemented students.  Many of my students can’t tell you what we did last lesson and expecting them to remember work from two years ago is just too difficult, even with frequent revision sessions.  As a consequence we have made the decision to revert back to BTEC qualifications as the portfolio based, low pressure assessment technique suits our students more than a terminal examination.

It’s a shame that Mr Gove gave absolutely no consideration to lower attaining students or those with special needs, instead he just seems determined to take us all back to the good old fashioned teaching styles he experienced himself.   In the meantime we’ll go back to BTEC assignments and portfolios to give our students a chance to achieve a qualification they can be proud of.

Image © Mag373 on Flickr

I’ve removed the names and grades, but the colours tell you all need to know.  Red means the assignment hasn’t been started, orange means it has, and green means it has been completed.  No prizes for guessing which of these students have left my BTEC group, but what I’ve got to work on now is plugging the gaps for those students who have work missing.

I’m fortunate in that I’ve seen BTEC lessons in a number of schools (at least four or five that spring to mind) and I have yet to find a better way of organising catch up work (or come to think of it a better way of tracking who has completed what).

If you teach BTEC you have my sympathies, I have a much smaller number of students than many mainstream teachers, and I understand what the pressure is like at this time of the year.  I’d be interested to hear from anyone who has a better system of keeping pupils up to date, or a better way of recording who has done what.

I’ve been following BTEC Science for a few years now (this being the last) and in that time I’ve been subject to repeated external verification and a Quality Review & Development review.

From my QRD report:

There is evidence of accuracy and consistency of assessment decisions.  There is also evidence of effective internal verification at the site visited.

From my EV report:

All assessment decisions agreed. Good feedback has been provided on the front sheets and grades have been annotated on the learner work which is good practice.

All assignments have been internally verified and learner work has also been sampled by the internal verifier clearly demonstrating an effective IV process.

I am confident in my ability to run BTEC within my centre – so what went wrong?  On checking the commentary (an Edexcel term for mark scheme) that accompanied my OSCA2 activity I could see that I had all the technical questions relating to internal verification right.   The questions I had got wrong relate to the awarding of assessment criteria – basically my standards are too high!

Reading through the scripts again it becomes obvious how easy it is to be awarded the assessment criteria, which has always been my concern with the Science BTECs I have experienced.   I’m proud to say I won’t be lowering my standards and my students will continue to exceed the assessment criteria as they receive the best quality science education I can provide.

That’s why I couldn’t care less about failing my OSCA2 certification…

I teach students with special needs, many of whom have good science skills.   It was customary until recently that all students did entry level qualifications, but I decided to challenge my students more and push them into GCSE equivalent examinations.

First of all we tried AQA Core science (modular multiple choice), thinking that multiple choice exams would suit our students.  The literacy requirements of this course were an absolute joke and students didn’t realise their full potential because they were held back by the way the questions were phrased.  When I worked through past papers with students the structure of the questions was not at all logical and candidates frequently became confused.

Having worked with other schools on BTEC I decided to try level 1 BTEC (Introductory).  The first cohort through responded really well but subsequent cohorts were plagued with poor attendance (most of it genuine and for medical reasons) and late comers who had missed chunks of the course.  As we progressed through the course it became apparent that we were spending more time generating portfolio material than we were spending on the actual science teaching.  My students are unable to catch up on their own, and we have many significant holes to fill at the end of the course.  If you only had to reach 80% or so of the assessment criteria it wouldn’t be a problem, but 100% for my students is a big ask!   To add insult to injury Edexcel have changed from a pass/merit/fail system to a pass/fail system that carries an extremely low point score (and yet still has similar assessment requirements).  Needless to say we will not be following BTEC Science next year.

So the search is on.  I need to find a qualification that lets my students demonstrate their science skills.  It seems the government would rather test students on their retention and memory skills with the shift away from modular exams.  I’ve looked at specifications and many of the ISA’s/coursework assessments are very demanding necessitated by the fact our science exams have apparently been much too easy in the past…

My question to you is what qualification do you recommend for students who have special needs and poor literacy skills (their science skills far exceed their literacy skills)?  What qualifications are you planning to adopt with your SEN students this year and what is the rationale for your choice?  Any feedback appreciated.

Image © jackhynes on Flickr

Running a site like this means I get a constant stream of emails from teachers who are teaching BTEC Science.  I’m fortunate that I also get out and about to visit lots of schools in my locality, and talk to many teachers that I meet through the ASE.  I have spent time working with schools to deliver BTEC science in such a way that the assessment is useful.  It should give students a chance to demonstrate their skills and knowledge in a vocational aspect, testing their science ability rather than their memory (or literacy) skills.

Let’s be honest.  We all know why BTEC is so popular.  Sure the teaching/learning style may suit some of the learners enrolled on the course, but the main reason BTEC is popular is that it offers two easy grade C’s.  Under pressure from leadership teams (who are in turn under pressure from government targets) schools have pushed many students through who fail to get grade C in traditional GCSE examinations.  If they do the work for BTEC they are guaranteed to get the grades.

What annoys me is schools who spoon feed students the answers, who reduce the work to tick lists of information to be presented.  In my opinion there is a subtle difference between “Create a TV advert to advocate the benefits of renewable and non-renewable energy” and “Make note on renewable energy”.  For many students now (especially the ones who BTEC is targeted at) ‘make notes’ is translated to ‘copy out of a book’, and no actual learning or understanding takes place (in fact quite often no teaching takes place either!).  I’ve seen schools set up BTEC factory days (they call them catch up days) where they pour in staff support, and students sit and write with text books (no teaching or practical work).   I’ve even see BTEC sessions where the teachers more or less tell the students what to write – can you imagine this happening in a GCSE examination?

Is this the kind of assessment we want for our learners?  Of course Edexcel loves BTEC – charging  £70+ a student with the school doing all of the work (setting & marking assignments), and the fees are paid up-front so they are laughing all the way to the bank.   It’s a shame that BTEC Science has fallen outside the remit of the Wolf Report reviewing vocational education, regardless Edexcel continue to delude themselves about the worth of this qualification…

From Edexcel “Professor Wolf stresses that Science was outside the remit of her Review, and will be encompassed by the National Curriculum Review which is currently underway. We know that BTEC Applied Science has become a valuable approach for thousands of students and offers a valid progression route through to A Level Applied Science.”

I live in hope that the curriculum review brings a change in the way science is assessed, a move away from vocational qualifications meaning copying from books, and one where examinations test science ability rather than memory and literacy skills?

Do you agree with me – come and leave me a comment (click on the title above if you receive this by email) and then fill in the boxes at the bottom of the page.

Image ©freeloosedirt on Flickr

I found this site whilst searching the Internet, from a Science teacher called Stewart Feather in Birmingham.  He has developed a whole approach to APP including a recording system that minimises the time demands on the teacher.

I would recommend that science teachers who use APP on a regular basis check out Stewart’s site - it is well worth a look.

]]> http://fiendishlyclever.com/2010/11/app-approach-to-managing-the-paperwork.html/feed 1 http://fiendishlyclever.com/2010/10/is-the-push-for-better-results-always-in-the-best-interests-of-the-child.html http://fiendishlyclever.com/2010/10/is-the-push-for-better-results-always-in-the-best-interests-of-the-child.html#comments Sun, 17 Oct 2010 17:45:08 +0000 Rob Butler http://fiendishlyclever.com/?p=2311 Continue reading →]]> Image © dcJohn @ Flickr

I teach BTEC Applied Science (level 1) in the special school where I work.  I introduced this course because I had students who were working at the bottom end of GCSE ability and had seen how previous cohorts of students had been failed by the language and literacy demands of AQA Core Science.  I hoped that portfolio based assessment would be more appropriate for students who struggle to retain information for any length of time, whilst still keeping a significant level of challenge. I also thought the freedom to set your own assignments was a good thing.  The administration involved with running a BTEC is a chore, especially when you are the sole science teacher in your school and you rely on the goodwill of other schools to help you with hurdles like internal verification, but I thought the results would be worth it.

Earlier this year my first group were awarded their qualifications.  They did pretty well with a selection of results from passes to distinction.  They were a very suitable group for this course – they tried hard, they had excellent attendance and enough of them could work independently.

Following the success of BTEC, the course was introduced to other groups.  These groups of students do not have the same excellent attendance that the previous group had (for a variety of medical and other genuine reasons).   This means that progression through the course has been slower than I would have liked, with frequent catch-up lessons for the significant number of students who have been absent (most of whom are unable to catch up without teaching input and time to do so).  Looking across my spreadsheet of assignments, I see many gaps that students have to go back and complete (a familiar picture to anyone who teaches BTEC I’m sure!).

Is it fair that students who manage to get themselves back into lessons are rewarded with mountains of work to catch up with?

Is it fair on the more able students that progression through the course is slower than it should be because we keep getting derailed by catch-up lessons?

As a school we use Fisher Family Trust data to set aspirational targets for our students.  We have to look at progression guidance data from the National Strategies team and we have our own internal target setting system using CASPA.  We are (in common with schools across the county) being strongly encouraged to increase our ‘measurable output’ in terms of key stage 4 accredited qualifications.  We are an outstanding school because of the attainment of our students (amongst other things) and because of our commitment to these students.

Is pushing students (sometimes pushing very hard) to get a better qualification always in the best interest of the child?  Is there a conflict between strands of the ‘Every Child Matters’ agenda – between enjoying and achieving?  Which is the most important?

For some students, simply attending school and sitting in lessons is a huge achievement, but we are encouraged to get them to jump through more hoops to make ourselves look better.  Until this system changes, can we really say we are acting in the best interests of the child?

I’d be interested to hear comments from readers of my website who find themselves in similar situations. (If you are reading this in an email or feed reader, click the title at the top of the screen and you should be taken straight to my site where you can leave a comment)

From launching the app with the ‘My Exams’ icon, you come the my exams page where you enter the dates and subjects of any exams coming up.  You can also post how you feel about the exam (e.g. I am confident, I am busy revising) and also post a message about your exam to your Facebook page.  Once you have entered your exams, you are given a list of exams in date order, with a countdown for each.  Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be much more to this section – I would have liked to see the ‘to do’ list as a separate tab in the application, perhaps collating the lists from all exams.

The app also has a section for useful and quite detailed study tips, like the importance of having a plan.  Whilst the app will only appeal to those students that are already preparing for exams (with an Apple device), it is another tool in their arsenal to help them succeed.  Search the Apple App store for ‘Exam Countdown’ – it’s a free download.

Now if only there was an app for willpower…

Thank you those people who took the time to respond – I’ve posted a brief summary of the responses below.

• Only 14% of respondents took three years to complete KS3
• 57% of people who responded already followed a two year KS3
• 64% of respondents thought starting KS4 was the better option to follow a two year KS3
• Of people who thought a skills year was best, most thought fun experiments and applying science were the most important things to include.
• Project work and KS3-KS4 bridging units were suggested as important for either KS3 or K4 work.
• One school talked about doing BTEC in Y9, then Diploma or more GCSE in Y10/11
• Two schools had negative experiences with a two year KS3, one was reverting to a three year KS3

So what did I decide to do?

I decided to take the best of both models and take the more skills based parts of the BTEC and spend more time on them, enriching students’ experiences through year 9.  We will then complete physics, chemistry and physics KS4 modules through year 10 to 11.  Students will complete more modules than required for Certificate but no where near enough for Diploma.